People

I am sorry to all of my followers that I haven’t been posting for sometime. Unfortunately our family has suffered some personal losses in a very short period of time. On 08/13/12 my baby boy Kolya made his journey to the rainbow bridge. Kolya was the best dog anyone could ever ask for, he was attentive, he tried to anticipate your needs and at the end of the day all he ever wanted was to hear he was a good boy and feel loved. He was an 85lbs lap dog wrapped in a guard dog body. He was the best guard dog when the occasion arose, but a better buddy. He was always willing to do anything for love, which from a training aspect was GREAT because I never train with treats.

When my husband left for basic it was amazing to me how Kolya seemed to know that I was alone and he stepped into the Boxer role of protecting the family. Not to say he was aggressive but he instinctively knew when he needed to step up his game to make sure mom was safe. To this day I still remember when I picked him up from the airport (he flew in from Slovakia from Fender Edda Kennels) he was this 10lb ball of fur. As soon as I took him out of his kennel he was in my arms and cuddled as close as he could be and he never left that space. Losing him has been a very devasting experience because it was so sudden. We believe he had a brain tumor as he was almost 10 years old. Since Boxers are not genetically predisposed to epilepsy and poison was out as well, all we were left with was a brain tumor or lesion.

I know a few of you might think I jumped the gun too quickly but I don’t believe in prolonging a life when the animal is hurting. In 3 days Kolya had 8 seizures and they went from small facial ticks to a full on grand maul. He was scared, hurting and extremely confused. I took him to the vet and she said that with his size and age I had a less then 50% chance of the anticonvulsants even working and we wouldn’t know for a week as that is how long it takes the body to absorb it. I wasn’t going to put him through that, I felt it would have been cruel on my part just because I didn’t want to lose him. As his mom/owner I made the hardest choice in my life to let him go with some dignity. He left this world the same way when I first met him, happily wagging his tail and surrounded by people who loved him.

On Saturday 08/18/12 my father William B. Webb Jr. passed away and he had the same problem as Kolya. Unfortunately he suffered for much longer. My father had brain cancer for 10 years and had many surgeries and complications, however he put up a great fight. My father was an amazing man, more so than most people know. He was a total jock in high school: football, basketball, baseball you name it he was in it. But what most people don’t know is how artistic he was. He was left handed and had a lot of injuries to his hands so drawing and painting where out of the question but the crafts he could make always had such intricate detail. He made the most beautiful dream catchers. He made them really small about the size of a quarter but they had all the weaving, beads and even the feathers.

He also was a true southern man. His house, his rules no matter who you were, stood by my mom’s side even if she was dead wrong because that was his wife, and believed in giving respect where it was due. He was the last person to get angry but when he was, boy did you listen! I didn’t realize how much like my father I was till he had passed and I was talking to my Aunt and his nurse about him and some of the silly things he had done in his life. For some that may not be something they are proud of to be like a parent but I am proud to be like my father.

I am sorry to share something that is so personal, however loss is a part of life and having my memories and photos to go with them is exactly why I decided to pick up my camera. Capturing the moments, because that is all we have. Many moments and the hope that we leave an impression on someone.